Etsy Sort Of Listens To Internet, Changes Privacy Defaults

Whimsy emporium Etsy finally sort of listened to its sellers, customers, and the entire Internet this afternoon when they changed a controversial feature that users claimed was a privacy breach. Users’ feedback history on the site is now private, and they can change those settings to become less private. Why did this matter?

(We initially reported that Etsy had turned off all of the controversial features, but have now verified that they have not. Users are still searchable by e-mail address, and real names are still part of Etsy profiles and indexed by search engines.)

Let’s pretend that Tax Cat sells erotic oil paintings of American CEOs on Etsy, and I bought one from her late last year, before the privacy settings changed. We were both happy with the transaction, and left each other positive feedback, as Etsy users are encouraged to do. A description of the item that sold and an the image of it would be in both of our feedback profiles permanently.

If I used the same e-mail address for my Etsy account that I use for personal correspondence and job-hunting, anyone with an Etsy account using the “find friends” feature can find this profile information and a list of every item that I had bought and left feedback on.

If I had entered my real name on my Etsy profile, as 25% of site users do, there’s another problem: Etsy has high search engine rankings, for many users, their Etsy profile was coming up as the #4 or #5 Google result for their name.

No. The issue here is our Feedback system, which has not changed in six years. We do not directly publish your purchases on Etsy. However, when a seller leaves feedback for an item you bought, or you leave feedback for an item you purchased, we would link to the item. Our Feedback system has always worked this way; our original thinking was that it’s important to know more about the transaction, to better establish trust in the marketplace.

We added the option to enter your real name when registering. Right next to this text field, it says: “Your full name will appear on your public profile. This is optional.” Some people enter their name, some don’t. As of right now, 25% of people (including us) have entered their real name.

It is the confluence of these two things that led us to this position: if you enter your real name, purchase an item, and the seller leaves feedback for this item, this purchase will be publicly visible via our Feedback system. Search engines index our site, which means this data can turn up there, too. It’s been this way since October.